Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to efficient techniques to perform a tune away procedure on a channel.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). A wireless network, for example a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), such as a Wi-Fi network (IEEE 802.11) may include an access point (AP) that may communicate with at least one station (STA) or mobile devices. The AP may be coupled to a network, such as the Internet, and enable a mobile device to communicate via the network (and/or communicate with other devices coupled to the access point).
Wi-Fi networks typically employ STA-based power-saving techniques for the STAs to manage coexistence or concurrency events, e.g., such as off channel scanning events for the STA, Bluetooth or cellular wireless communication systems coexistence, STA and peer-to-peer (P2P) communications using different channels, etc. Conventional techniques may include preventing the AP from transmitting frames to the STA while the STA has tuned away from the channel.
From the AP perspective, such techniques may include the AP transmitting a clear-to-send (CTS) frame to itself (CTS-to-self or CTS-S) that reserves the channel while the AP has tuned away. The technique operates by preventing other channel coexistent devices from transmitting on the channel during the time when the channel can be reserved by, and as indicated in, the CTS-S. This mechanism, however, can be wasteful because traffic that is not directed to the AP cannot be sent during this time period and the channel remains idle during the AP tune away procedure.